Bad tourist woz ’ere

You’d think that anyone scrawling graffiti on a national treasure would think better than to include their name, but logic seemed to defy one young tourist in Egypt, who was forced to apologise after writing “Ding Jinhao visited here” on the wall of an ancient temple. The 15-year-old student from China, who visited the 3,500 year-old Temple of Luxor last year, was tracked down online after a photo of the image went viral. After being hounded by the press and having his school website hacked – forcing visitors to click a message repeating his tag – his mother eventually told local newspaper Modern Express: “We want to apologise to the Egyptian people.” Fortunately for Jinhao, who was said to have cried all night after being identified, it was reported that the damage to the wall was superficial.

The llama-rama

Serge the llama was eventually tied to a pole at a tram station

Five french teenagers made national news in November after stealing a circus llama in Bordeaux and taking him for a ride on the city’s tram system. The llama, named Serge, was abducted by the drunken youths who had been hoping to nab a zebra but ended up settling for the llama as he seemed a little more amenable. Speaking to BFM TV, one of the five said: “It walked with us like a good dog would have.” The surreal adventure was eventually brought to a stop when the tram inspector ejected Serge (presumably because he didn’t have a ticket) and tied him to a lamp-post. The director of the Cirque Franco-Italien, John Beautour, eventually dropped his complaint to the police after a Facebook group entitled “Support the Bordeaux Five” got over 700,000 likes. Less sympathy, however, was garnered for two British tourists who broke into an Australian theme park in 2012, stealing a celebrity penguin named Dirk. Each was fined £637, and Dirk was safely reunited with his girlfriend, Peaches.

Machu Picchu – naked

Much like the curious incident of the naked Italians in the daytime, authorities at the renowned Inca settlement of Machu Picchu have recently been forced to crack down on “naked tourism” at the site. In March, four American tourists were detained while posing in the nude for photos, barely a week after four other tourists were caught doing the same thing. The new measures include increased surveillance at the site and a warning on the back of tickets that it is not OK to strip off. Speaking to CNN, Alfredo Mormontoy Atayupanqui, director of archaeological resources for Peru’s Ministry of Culture said: “There are places in the world that people can get naked, but not all places are [appropriate] for getting undressed.”

Can’t quite put your finger on it …

In what was hardly an endorsement of his professional abilities, surgeon Patrick Broderick found himself under arrest after accidentally snapping off the finger of a 600-year-old statue of the Virgin Mary at a museum in Florence. Broderick was comparing his hand to the statue’s when he slipped, amputating its little finger in the process. The American was swiftly arrested – in front of his family (the shame, the shame) – and taken into custody, where he is reported to have apologised profusely. Fortunately for Broderick, he was released without charge.

Excess baggage

If there is a “trend” to be found in bad tourist behaviour, it would have to be drunkenness. One Norwegian traveller got so sloshed that he couldn’t even stay conscious long enough to make it through the airport, let alone steal a llama. The 36-year-old man, who we presume is thankful to remain anonymous, passed out on the conveyor belt after climbing over one of the check-in desks and travelled for around 50 metres before being spotted in the X-ray machine. This kind of behaviour is not taken lightly by airport authorities, as British man Lee Jezard found this week when he was fined for drunkenly sneaking on board a plane at Birmingham airport after climbing through the baggage carousel in a similar fashion. When he was arrested, Jezard said: “I was trying to show how easy it was to get on that plane – and I did it. I told the cleaners I was the co-pilot.”